Thing 19

I checked the blog of a music teacher and went to the site she recommended--pandora.com. I've created 3 different "stations" of music. I like a variety, so I'll probably create more. I think this is a really cool site and plan to share it with friends and students. I also plan to go back and look at more sites.

Thing 18

I'm going to use Google Docs today (or tomorrow) to work on our August inservice plans with committee members. I'm also going to use it to plan the Tribes course that I'm teaching with a new "partner". I promise to report back.
As to the use of Open Office: It would be great to have it available if you didn't have Microsoft Office (which is kind of expensive). I looked at the different components, but didn't actually prepare any documents. I can't see the advantage to using it over Microsoft.

Thing 17

I just can't get Rollyo to work for me. I've tried to download my favorites using their instructions numerous times, and I go through all of the steps, but it still says I have nothing saved. I've spent several hours on this, so I'm moving on to the next thing. I've read some of the other blogs and several people seem to be having the same problem.

Thing 17

I'm having trouble with using Rollyo. I search for music education lists and didn't find anything useful. Since I already have some pretty good feeds in Google Reader, I wondered about using those as a starting point. I don't have any favorites saved on the desktop of this computer. I'm going to keep trying.

Thing 16

My only previous experience with Wikipedia was having my university students use it as a source. After the first semester, I had to say that they couldn't use it because it's not so reliable. I wasn't aware of the other uses (being able to create a wiki for a particular purpose). This could be a solution to the difficulties of teacher committees meeting, maybe. It's so hard for busy teachers to get together (especially from far-flung district schools), so I'm going to try this. Also, there are several teachers teaching the university class I mentioned and we want to go toward standardizing certain aspects of the course. I see some good uses here. A personal use could be planning our next family reunion!

Thing 15

See the second Thing 14. I'm moving faster than I thought!

Thing 14

The past, present, and future of libraries is very important to me (and probably to most teachers), so I find this to be an interesting topic, even though I'm not directly involved. Several items did ring true to me. "...if our services can't be used without training, then it's the services that need to be fixed. . . " made me remember how difficult it has been for me to use the card catalog on the computer rather than in the drawers. The Library 2.0 movement seems to be aimed at making services more accessible to users. the idea of a collective intelligence sounds like some of the books I read in the '70's, but I liked the idea then and I still do! I'd never thought of libraries functioning as "conversations", but if users are able to participate in the development and evolution of those services, then I guess it's a valid idea. I wonder if I'll eventually be able to craft my own library!